2/25/2017

The new action/horror movie Drifter tells the story
of two brothers on a cross country journey fueled by revenge. The film is set
in a near-apocalypse similar to the original Mad Max. That’s not where
the resemblance ends, as the filmmakers pay heavy homage to the George Miller
classic and others like it all throughout this desert-set bloodbath. Clearly, one
of their favorite aspects of those types of films is how relentlessly filthy
they are. At times Drifter goes a bit too far with its visual references, though,
letting style upstage substance in scenes where that doesn’t really fit. “Too
much of a good thing” and so on.

The movie opens with a series of scenes meant to introduce
us to the two brothers and the wasteland of a world they inhabit. They drive
their beaten-down dystopia sedan through the desert, face off with gangs of
freaks and robbers, and blow them away with a whole host of guns. First-time
director Chris von Hoffmann makes a lot of bold choices throughout the movie. He
captures these showdowns in hyper-stylized quick cuts and swoopy, dutch-angle camerawork
reminiscent of The Evil Dead or the campy Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960’s.
While this cartoonish, over-the-top style is a personal favorite genre of mine,
in this first half of Drifter it feels out of place, and
occasionally a bit distracting. Although set in a violent shoot-‘em-up wasteland,
the introductory scenes of the film are written with a sort of slow-burning,
drawn out pace that clashes with the high energy camera work and editing.

The back half of the movie really picks up the pace, and
lives up to the promise of the style flashed throughout its slow moving intro.
The brothers find themselves stuck in a mysterious and hostile small town, overrun
by cannibalistic psychopaths. In a sentence I can’t believe I’m writing, the
film really gets going once they introduce the cannibals. The sadistic mayor of
the town (played as a cross between The Joker and The Walking Dead’s Negan)
captures the brothers in a brutal show of force, and our heroes are forced to
fight their way out of this society of lunatics.

Ultimately, I did enjoy a lot of Drifter. Although it is a
bit much, the visual tone is really impressive, especially for a film that’s
this low-budget. Fans of this type of grungy, gritty B-Movie genre should
probably give it a watch. It’s gross, and scuzzy, and over-the-top, and
in-your-face, and a lot of the time that really works for its benefit. Drifter
is proud genre-movie sleaze.